Lack of financial stability an emerging issue for foster carers

TONY EASTLEY: Australia doesn't have enough carers to look after the thousands of children who need foster care.

And for those who do take on the job it can be a difficult financial road which can see them dip into their own savings just to look after the children.

Simon Lauder reports from Melbourne.

SIMON LAUDER: It's bedtime for these two young children who have been in Karen Dobby's care since April.

KAREN DOBBY: Alright. What's your story book called?

CHILD: (Inaudible)

KAREN DOBBY: Good girl.

SIMON LAUDER: This brother and sister are the only foster children in Karen Dobby's home at the moment, but her family has taken in many like them in the past decade.

KAREN DOBBY: I would say it would have to be over 150 now, because we've done a lot of sibling groups, short term emergency placements as well. Like we might just get a phone call at 2 o'clock in the morning and we get three kids arriving on the doorstep.

SIMON LAUDER: A hundred and fifty?

KAREN DOBBY: I think easily over that 10 year time. Some have been short term, as I said, just you know a few hours. Sometimes overnight. Others have been up to two years.

SIMON LAUDER: Ms Dobby says gets about $20 per child per day from the Victorian Government. Extra costs are covered by her husband's personal income.

KAREN DOBBY: An example today - the oldest one was sick - $20 to buy medicine. Home for the day, again, you know, cancelled appointments and things that I had on today. Then after school we had an activity, we were down there again, more money coming out of your pocket for the sausage sizzles and drinks and whatever else is going on at the school there. So that's just one day in this week, sort of thing.

The financial reimbursement is not adequate. You're always just taking out of your pocket.

SIMON LAUDER: Have you ever come close to quitting, for financial reasons?

KAREN DOBBY: Definitely, you know where we've had unemployment for a little while, and you sort of go, we've got to consider what's happening.

SIMON LAUDER: Foster carers have long complained about the rate of government reimbursement, but now another financial issue is emerging as a barrier to foster care.

The president of the Foster Care Association of Victoria, Josh Fergeus, says the lack of superannuation is a problem.

JOSH FERGEUS: Look I think it's emerging as an issue. I think where we used to have mostly heterosexual couples in their you know fifties or sixties used to be your stereotypical foster carer, and the husband would go to work and the wife would stay home and look after the kids.

They weren't thinking of it like giving up a second income because that wasn't really something that they were doing anyway.

Whereas now you've got lots of couples where both people are working or lots of single people where they're working full time. And you know that's becoming more the norm. So when someone stays home to look after kids full time, they're viewing that as a loss of income, and so I think it's becoming something that's more top of mind for people.

SIMON LAUDER: The Foster Care Association is hoping to convince the Federal Government to provide superannuation funds for foster carers. Mr Fergeus says the shortage of carers will worsen unless support improves.

JOSH FERGUS: The system is so constantly motivated by a sense of crisis that people just attend to things in front of them right at the moment. And if we don't start having this conversation now, we'll be a few years down the track, everyone else in the workforce will be putting away 12 per cent of their salary every year into super.

So if you're a foster carer, and you've missed the next five or 10 years of not getting that super, that really adds up. So we think it's a conversation we need to start having now.

KAREN DOBBY: Teeth, toilet and bed please.

SIMON LAUDER: It hasn't come yet, but Karen Dobby says there will be a day when the financial cost of foster care forces her to reconsider.

KAREN DOBBY: But it would be nice to know in the back of my mind the Government are looking after us a little bit with superannuation. So when I get to that point I go, you know what, I don't regret the last 15 years where I had no income, no superannuation building for me. I don't want to get there and regret that.

Good night.

CHILDREN: Good night.

TONY EASTLEY: Melbourne woman Karen Dobby and some of the children in her care, ending that report from Simon Lauder.

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